Algeria army kills heavily armed Islamist: ministry

Algerian soldiers have shot dead a heavily armed Islamist in the Tebessa region on the northeastern border with Tunisia, the defence ministry said Sunday.

"As part of the fight against terrorism, an army detachment in Tebessa shot down... a terrorist" near the area of Ain Mdila on Saturday, the ministry said in a statement carried by the national news agency APS.

A Kalashnikov assault rifle and a large quantity of ammunition and explosives were seized during the operation, it added.

Violence involving armed Islamists in Algeria has fallen considerably since the civil war of the 1990s, but groups linked to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb still carry out attacks in the northeast, mostly on security forces.

The Algerian army says more than 100 armed Islamists were killed in 2014.